Caring for Creatives: Battling Burnout (Ep. 1 - Understanding Creatives)

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Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in me. It's your boy. yo, what's going on? Yo? Welcome to the Reimagining Worship podcast. My name is Trevor Chen. I am your host. I have the privilege of being able to provide a space for us to talk through different aspects of worship. I'm gonna get to that in a little bit. But season one, we did a lot of interview style giving different backgrounds of people's experiences and challenges when it comes to leading worship.

Season two. We continue down that lane for a little bit unique things like women in women in leadership in predominantly male do in male dominated spaces and things like that. But we also kind of lean in some, some of this general creative stuff. I gave a couple just one off podcast and then I gave a little special treat from our reimagining worship sessions, our live sessions.

Those are it's a retreat style situation. It's just a one quick overnight situation and we come together, we pray, we eat, we fellowship and we create, we make music together, all that kind of good stuff. So, but here we are now in season three, season three, and I'm gonna give this introduction on the top of each of the episodes for this season.

Now I'm gonna make a commitment. This go around this because of the style and the, the, the stuff that's being communicated in this episode or in this podcast. This is gonna be fairly regular. So, every Friday this on this channel, I'm gonna drop a new episode. These episodes are gonna be slightly longer because I really wanna go through a course.

I'm doing an eight week course. And season three is gonna be dedicated to that course. And season three, this is the title of it. Roll with me, creative burnout, how to battle burnout, supporting creatives, you guessed it? I don't have a real title for it. So, but this course is about acknowledging our shared struggles as creatives and, and how we learn to maintain a balance to prevent burnout.

And I'm being funny but like, like the, the title for this, for this season right here is battling burnout in that we're gonna talk through understanding creatives and how they operate, recognizing what burnout is, how to sell healthy, how to set healthy boundaries, creating empowering powering environments for creatives. And just a few things around a lot of these ideas.

Now, let me tell you what this is not, this is not a bunch of hot takes. I'm not interested in a bunch of like podcast shorts that we can promote that go viral. That's not that, that's not what this is. This also isn't a bunch of preaching like this isn't a preaching podcast. I don't wanna get up here and just give you just, just preach to y'all. This is not a podcast about hearing and again, let me clarify.

Also, these aren't bad things by any means, but this also isn't a podcast about hearing other people's stories and where they come from. If you want to check that out, we have season one and season two right here under this channel. But this season, this season, season three, starting July 14th, 2023. This is episode one is dropping. I'm saying that the Hold me Hold my own self accountable, but this season is spec a spec this season is specifically geared to, to help pastors Andre.

Oh, yeah, it's gonna be live cuts too like we, we, we're just gonna roll, it's not gonna be the most Polish situation. We rolling. So I want you to roll with your boy, but this season is gonna be geared to help pastors and creatives and churches who are heading into burnout, headed out of burnout, helping people navigate their schedules, helping people navigate their teams, their emotions, creating healthy conversations and healthy dialogue, like how to do that in your own

churches and environments creating a community for people to be cared for and all that kind of good stuff. So before we start, I do want to invite you now. This is my, this is my only plug. I want to invite you to head over to Trevor dot com and sign up for our mailing list. I have a, a ebook later this month. A lot of this content and some more is going to be packaged up in the ebook that I'm going to read least publicly in the fall.

But if you sign up for the mailing list, you'll have access to this course by way of ebook at the end of this month. So go ahead, go ahead, slide over to Trevor Chin dot com. Hey, listen, if you're listening on Spotify or Apple podcast, you can do that whilst listening to the podcast. So go on and do that right now, Trevor chin dot com. Trevorchin dot com.

As we get started, I just, and again, this is gonna be a part of every podcast this episode just for folk that might hop in episode two or episode three, episode four or whatever. But, but I would coin myself or call myself a creative executive. I have the privilege I've, I've had the, the astute privilege of working in churches for the last 18 years or so in various roles.

I mean, I've been a, a worship leader, a worship pastor, an executive pastor, a church planner, a co-founder, a creative director. And all of these different roles have unique nuances and different things that I've learned throughout the years. And I want to take what I've learned over the years and share different aspects of what it means to be a creative executive.

You know what I mean? So, reimagining worship is not just about singing songs, I mean, worship in and of itself isn't just about singing songs. It's a lifestyle and, and as it pertains to the church, it's, it's deeply woven into the fabric of every department. You know what I mean? For the creative departments to the more to the children's department like everything.

It's a lifestyle and as it pertains to church, like it's, it's, it's in every leadership space, every environment. So if you look through my podcast, you'll see, like I said, season one, a lot of friends who are worship leaders, their unique experiences. Season two was a little closer to like training. But, but season three where we are like, we're, this is battling burnout at the end of the day.

That is the idea for this podcast. So, listen, I hope you enjoy, I hope you stuck around this long to hear that extremely long introduction. But hey, listen, let's get started. This is episode, one episode, one understanding creatives. So I wanna kind of begin by talking in speaking into like, understanding who a creative is like, and II, I don't, sometimes I don't like that language because I mean, a quote unquote creative has his own stigma associated with it.

And, and I mean, we're talking the typically the more you know what I mean, emotional or like it has its own kind of, yeah, I mean, stigma associated with it, but I really want to kind of give kind of communicate a few things who they are now. Here are the challenges. I want to talk through the challenges, the inspirations and the unique perspectives, challenges, inspirations and unique perspectives.

Firstly, the challenges with creatives specifically in the church setting, The first idea is understanding and appreciation, understanding and appreciation often the unique work and contribution of creatives may not be fully understood or appreciated and this could lead them to feeling undervalued or misunderstood. Let me say that again, the, the, the contribution or the, the work of creatives may not fully be understood or appreciated.

I mean, we've all can can, can feel what this feels like where it's like I've spent six hours to make this 15 2nd clip amazing for the church. And it's, it's, it's, it's a whole big thing and it's, and it's, oh my good job or not even that or it's like, hey, man, listen, like, shout out to our creative team, like whatever, whatever it could be. the unique work and the things that we do can either take a lot of heart, they take a lot of time, they take a lot of passion.

And, and, and the, the, the strength of a creative is that we are, we don't just work with our hands. We don't create just solely with our hands. We create with our hands and our heart. And our head for that matter, like it's a, it's a unique thing for a real creative. So that's the one thing understanding and appreciation and, and, and, and when creatives give all that they have, and it's kind of, it falls on like dead ears or dead eyes or dead hearts is difficult, it's difficult

emotionally to manage. The second challenge is balancing tradition and innovation. Now, depending on your church background. or you mean your church setting, this could be one of the things for you. Maybe you're in a, I mean younger church or more creative church that it kind of welcomes a lot of creative expression, not every church is like that.

And oftentimes there is this sensitive balance that leaders and pastors have to play when it comes to creating change and innovation in the church. Often times, based on seasons of life, like some folk don't want to see no hats and no church, no hats and no and no shorts and no church. Now, you know what I mean? So balancing tradition and innovation.

So with the creative trying to find their intentional space here. The other thing, the third idea is resource constraints, resource constraints. This is a big one that means you ain't got no money. That's what that means. If you wonder what resource constraints means, it means you ain't got no money. Churches, especially smaller ones often operate with limited resources.

A creative creatives may have grand visions but might struggle to realize them due to budgetary or other constraints. See, I just let that, I just had to let that breathe for a second. Hey, listen, one of the biggest battles is seeing all of these, whether it be software or tech or cameras or equipment and prices of stuff is steadily rising and budgets for churches are steadily decreasing depending on your church situation.

And as it pertains to the for the creative department, like, yo, like often times that is a lot of that stuff can be viewed as a luxury based on you mean your background or where you come from? Like your your your pastor could not, maybe he wouldn't view like a social media, like great social media stuff as as a asset, but as a luxury that's nothing.

And the last one I'll say by way of challenges, that kind of rounds out this whole season is burnout. given their passion and the emotional, engaging and the giving their passion and the emotionally engaging nature of their work. Creatives are at higher risk of burnout. Given their passion and the emotionally engaging nature of their work.

Creatives are at higher risk of burnout. They may not work long hours, but they pour out their hearts into their work and they end up feeling drained. There's something that like there's a creative rabbit trail or rabbit hole rather that there has been countless times working on a project. just kind of get lost in the space lost in the time.

And I look up and it is 3 34 in the morning. That's not uncommon just because the way how creativity works and and creators understand like, yo, it's hard to get in that zone to get in that mode when you're just kind of in a creative, good, creative space. But when you finally get there and you're rolling, like it's hard to break, it's hard to stop.

So, that's where burnout comes out, that's where burnout comes out along with a lot of other things that we're gonna talk through this week. So, like I said, the challenges are understanding and understanding and appreciation. balancing tradition and innovation. Number three resource constraints and number four is burnout. now to counterbalance that there are some inspirations that, that, that creatives have in the same space.

There's faith that's, you know what I mean? It's the gospel. Do the faith journey can be a profound source just of inspiration for creatives in the church, like the teachings of Jesus, the scriptures, the Sunday morning experience groups, prayer time, like all of these can be deep and meaningful and transform, transformative creative works.

So like this is, this is big. This is really big. I want to be careful with some of my language here, but like, like, there's a unique space that creatives can, like, there's a, there's a unique way that creatives can sit in as it pertains to like learning and leaning into Jesus. Like there, there's a, there's a worship space. If you're playing music, like, you know what I mean?

If you're a musician or a worship leader, you might have been here just like you're playing and you're just, and you're just leaning into the spirit. It could be, you're creating, you're, you're leaning into it could be time and prayer when you're just, when you're painting you, like, you just, there's that space that you're just that you're just leaning in.

You're, you're being reminded of the goodness of God, you're being reminded of the goodness of the gospel. Like that's all those are unique spaces. The other big piece is by, by way of inspiration is community being relational people like, you know, we love and depending on what side of the spectrum you are creatives like to be in other spaces with other creatives.

That's why when you look at certain churches like, yo, man, why they have everyone at that church is a creative, everyone at that church does something in the creative department. Yeah, because creatives love to be around other creatives because we, we, we create together, we inspire each other. Like it's, it's, it's a thing. So community is another big inspiration.

And then the other thing that I've seen a lot more recently from in the creative space is social impact social movement. We saw this a lot through the pandemic, we saw this a lot through some some of the injustices that you mean that, that have happened over the years. And how organizations have formed and how creatives that kind of entered into some of those organizations.

And, and I think a big part of that is just because as a creative, like we are a lot closer to our feelings, like our feelings are right? Like my, like my heart is right here on my, on my desk, right in front of me. You know what I mean? That's where my heart is. It don't take, it, don't take long to find it. It's, it's, it's right there. So that's another thing.

So again, the, some of the inspirations faith community and social impact. Lastly, the last idea around this is the unique perspective. This is where I think that that would be good for churches and leaders to understand about creatives. This is the, these are some of the strengths for creatives. If you will, they're, they're unique perspectives, innovative worship.

That's the first idea. They bring new ways to express worship and continued to connect with Jesus. Like you get what I mean? Like to connect with God's people, connect with God. that might be through music, through art, through dance, like there's creative expression that there's arrangements, there is videos, there's sermon introduction, like there's all of this innovation that has happened and we've seen it over the years.

especially how as like software and tech has become more affordable and more accessible for a lot of people to where like people are getting their hands on stuff and really leaning into some of this innovation in, in this worship space. We think about stage design, you know what I mean? That, that, that impacts that we think about what we call it from the from the parking lot to the pulpit.

Like what what someone experiences when they pull into the parking lot all the way into when they walk into the into the auditorium. Like all of that impacts the worship experience The other big thing, especially in the, in a, in a video space is storytelling. That's another unique perspective, creatives have a unique ability to be able to tell stories and engage and draw motion and all that kind of good stuff.

Like, I mean, a, a big example of this is Bible project. Like, I don't know if y'all know Bible project, but Bible project just go on youtube and look at Bible project. This, this is the most creative storytelling asset for the church. Maybe ever like real talk. I I like Bible project is just absolutely amazing. I, to this day, I mean, I like when I'm preparing messages or, or, or deep complex things like I'll be like, alright, well, let me, let me see what Bible project says because

they have a way of, of saying it uniquely creatively simply with visuals with, I mean, it's great. So so innovative worship storytelling. Another big one is community engagement. I won't speak a lot to that. But comedian engagement and then the last thing and this is, this is a little weird but like visualizing the invisible, visualizing this, that this is again the fourth unique perspective, visualizing the in the invisible creatives have the uncanny ability to be able to

express abstract concepts in tangible visible and experiential forms. Period, like an idea, a blank canvas becoming AAA beautiful piece of art. A a piano that has been sitting in a garage or in a Yeah, I mean, in a, in an auditorium that hasn't been played for years can be transformed into a beautiful musical masterpiece based on whose hands it's in.

so the the ability for a creative, to be able to have that level of vision and creative expression, like and see something that's not, there is a unique perspective. So the unique perspective, like I said, innovation and worship, storytelling, community engagement, visualizing the invisible. So that is kind of like the, the, the, the, the introduction or the, the, the, I mean, kind of understanding creatives as we kind of go through this journey.

I want for us to continue to kind of recognize that where the challenges are like the challenges of understanding their and appreciation, the balancing tradition and innovation understanding the, the restraint the, the resource constraints burn out. But then kind of what inspires a creative community, faith, social impact, create spaces for for inspiration.

And then even the unique perspective that creatives bring to the table with innovative worship, with storytelling, with community engagement and with their vision or visualizing the invisible. So that is kind of who a creative is. That's how they, that's how we think. And again, like, hey, this isn't an umbrella, this isn't every creative I'm just, this is just, this is a little more general.

If you're creative and you listen to this and like, I don't follow in those categories, hey, that's all good. You know what I mean? That's the beauty thing, beautiful thing about craves that we come in multiple shapes and sizes. But this, this is really for people who are really trying to get a hold of understand the heart and the heart beat and the heart throb of, of, of how creative Oper creatives operate.

There can be this strong line, this dividing line between an executive leader and a creative leader, an executive leader thinks through a system through a process, through what needs to be done and the execution that needs to get done for it to be able to happen. And a creative leader thinks through like what are creative ways that we can do it.

Like there's a, there's usually a lot of ideas, there's a lot of expression, there's a lot of thought and time and, and, and different aspects that comes into play like it's not just so cut and dry. And oftentimes there can be a, a line, a heavy line that's drawn as a communication barrier that's drawn where it's like, hey, I'm just not understanding and my desire, my desire is to bridge that gap.

My desire is really to bridge those two spaces. So we can have stronger churches so we can have stronger relationships. So we can have people in community together that are not giving of, of all of the same elk and to be able to create environments, create spaces, create for we have to have healthy conversations. So again, if you've been rolling with us this whole time, I appreciate you.

This is just episode one. We have so much, so much to talk through over the next eight weeks, the next episode. And hey, you know, if I'm on a roll, you know, we might see up here and me, I might, I might drop episode two, you me tomorrow or Sunday or Monday at worst. It will be here next Friday. But episode two, we're gonna be talking about like valuing creatives in the church.

That's a big thing, how to value creatives in the church. I mean, I want to talk about how to, how to better appreciate and utilize the gifts of a creative all that kind of good stuff and I've, I've like hard concrete examples. This is if this, if this season is gonna be one thing, it's gonna be a lot, a lot of very applicable stuff. I think I have like 20 ways how you can appreciate creatives as well as help them utilize their gifts.

So one of them, one of them, I'll give you a hint before we get to next week. Not a hint but a but a kind of a sneak peek. The one thing and I was just talking to a good pastor friend of mine about this yesterday. Oftentimes a leader will tell a creative or like a lead pastor will tell someone on the creative team, like, hey, listen, we need a sermon series for we need a sermon series for the book of songs.

Let's let me, let me, let's, let's just say that based on the creative, on this creative team, they're gonna go through 1000 and one different ways to how to kind of create this idea or this concept. They can, I mean, maybe it will be red or maybe it will be green. Do we lean on the font from the church? Do we do something extremely crazy? Do we try to lean into the younger audience?

Do we try to make it more churchy? Like it's a book of songs? So it's like, do we make it like a, like a song book or a hymn? No, like there's a lot of different ways and oftentimes for real, for real, like that lead pastor may or may not have a direction that they want to go. Sometimes it's like, yo, if you make some dope, like that's kind of what I want, but sometimes they have a very specific thing that they want to see, but they don't know how to communicate it to this creative.

So one big thing is helping pastors find the language to give creatives enough runway and enough direction that that still allows them to use their creative gifts. But also doesn't cause them to start from a blank sheet of paper every single time. Little things like that will really help kind of bridge that gap to be able to allow the creator to be able to output more.

because like a joker like me, if you tell me, hey, listen, let's do you me do some II I love some direction. If you give me a little bit of direction. Like, yo, I wanna do get me with the Apple logo. Like that mixes with, you know what I mean, Gucci that mixes with like something, give me a direction that we can lean into a tone. Like something that, that, you know me, me and my man Charlie say all the time like yo, Nike, when you say Nike, you know what Nike looks like, Nike has a direction,

Nike has an angle. Nike has. If Nike had a store, you can imagine what the store looks like. If Nike had a gym, you can imagine what a Nike gym would look like if Nike had a restaurant as crazy as it sounds, you can see. Yeah, I mean, like that, it's very clear and you can know what kind of restaurant that would be. That's because there's an intentional creative direction. And if you kind of continue to create those creative directions. Then the creatives on that team will be able to

flourish, we will be able to move faster, we will be to output more. So that's just an example that's not even see, that's not even part of my 20. Yeah, I mean my 20 things, but that's just an example of some of the things I want to talk through in the next episode. So listen, I hope you stick around. I hope you stick around. Share. Subscribe, go to Trevor Chin dot com. Sign up for our email list and I look forward to connecting you another time. Peace, peace.